Falling Into Darkness
by KryptoFreakShow
Summary: Chloe has a nightmare that brings her face-to-face with her own inner demons.


Chloe knew it was only a dream, just as she knew it every time the dream came to her, but that didn't stop it from frightening her anyway.

She felt so alone there, on the grated platform, even though everyone she truly cared for in life was just a short distance away, dangling below her feet. There they were, a giant, tangled mess of flesh, blood, bone, and fear: the fear that came with knowing that it was only the slender chord that connected them to the girl above that prevented them from plummeting to their deaths in the dark abyss below. Her father, Clark, Pete, and Lana, all there in one huge writhing placenta. She could see them through the outer membrane as they moved about inside. The chord that held them was woven not of thread, but of her own flesh: an umbilical chord that led up through the grated platform, into Chloe's abdomen. It was slippery and she had to wrap it around her hands and ball her fists as tightly as she could to keep a hold of it, maintaining some slack between her belly and those below. She could feel it pulse ever so slightly in her grip. The rhythm matched the beating of her heart, which had grown rapid with fear. When she looked down at the quivering fists that held the chord, she realized that they were not the fully-grown hands of a sixteen year-old young woman, but the tiny digits of a five year-old little girl. She was wearing a bright white cotton dress, under which hung the slacked end of the chord. Pain and frustration had brought her near tears. The weight of four adults was too much for her to maintain. Still, she knew that if she released her grip, not only would everyone she loved die, she was sure that the weight would be enough to rip out her insides, as they were connected to the chord, and pull them through the grated metal of the platform like pasta through a press. She'd be ripped inside out and shredded. They would die and she would die with them. Still, she knew that she could not hold on much longer.

"Help me! Please, somebody help me!" she screamed. There was no one in sight that could help her though. Indeed, there was nothing else beside herself, the platform, the chord, and those inside the placenta for as far as her eyes could see. All else was darkness, a seemingly endless void. There wasn't even anything visibly holding up the platform. Her cries went unanswered and were swallowed up by the emptiness around her. She was alone.

To make matters even worse, she could feel what little strength her tiny body contained being drawn out through the umbilical chord. She felt herself growing weaker the longer she stood there. It was as if her very living essence was being pulled from her, pulled down to nourish those in the placenta. 

For the first time, she found herself wondering who could have placed her in such a situation. Only a toddler, and yet she was being expected to sustain the lives of one adult and three teenagers, and in more ways than one. _Who could place such responsibility in her hands knowing that her failure was inevitable? Who could be so sadistic, especially when her failure would result in all their deaths? _The utter unfairness of the situation finally hit home and she fell to her knees sobbing in frustration. She pulled her head to her knees, still keeping her grip on the chord. The strength was draining away from her hands though, and she knew she couldn't hold on much longer. At that moment, she was almost prepared to accept the inevitable, to allow fate to deliver them all to their doom. 

Just as she was about to lose all hope, she felt someone step up behind her.

"Why are you still hanging on, Chloe?" A voice asked.

Chloe turned around immediately and looked up to see her mother, standing there in her own long, white cotton dress. Her face, which held only a cold, detached expression, was similar to Chloe's in appearance. Her hair was cut short and colored a deep blood red. She stood before her with such strength and poise it was hard to believe that she hadn't been carved from stone or cast in steel. Her beautiful blue eyes held the small child in an icy stare that left her unable to respond.

"Why are you still hanging on?" She repeated.

Chloe finally summoned up enough courage to look the woman in the face and answer. The ridiculousness of her mother's statement had stunned her like a slap to the face. "They'll die if I let go!" She shouted. "I'll die!"

"No you won't," she replied calmly. "You know you can't hold on forever. You can already feel yourself growing weaker and weaker by the moment."

Chloe resented hearing the truth spoken to her aloud, and resented it all the more because she couldn't deny it. Though she knew that there was no way for her to save the lives of her loved ones, she'd just been told that there was a chance for her to save herself. "What do you mean?"

"You know perfectly well what I mean," her mother said without the slightest hint of emotion. 

She let herself ponder this for a moment and realized that she _did_ understand. She hadn't wanted to let herself consider it before. Thinking about it now, and how tempting it was, was enough to make her sick to her stomach as soon as her conscience came into play. She couldn't do it, not even if it meant death.

"I can't!" She screamed.

"Yes you can Chloe."

She shook her head, both in denial and in an attempt to shake the wicked scenario from her mind. She didn't even want to consider it, but there was nothing else to consider. _Isn't there any other way? _ She thought. "Please, help me," she pleaded. Warm tears streamed down her soft baby cheeks as she was overwhelmed by hopelessness, pain, and frustration.

"Help yourself."

"Please, just help me hold on to them. I can't do it alone, I'm too weak."

"You're weak because you have allowed _them_," she said, pointing down at the placenta, "to make you weak." This time there was a noticeable hint of disgust in her voice as she spoke. "You give them all your devotion, all your loyalty, all your _love_, and what have they ever given you in return? Can you even remember anyone ever telling you that they loved you, even once in your whole life?"

She let the last question sink in for a moment, searched her memory as far back as it could go for an answer. She really couldn't remember anyone telling her that she was loved. She felt that her father loved her but he never actually said it aloud. He was probably afraid to. It had hit him so hard when Chloe's mother had abandoned them. He was left with the undying fear that Chloe too would one day walk out of his life forever. The fear ran so deep that he would subconsciously distance himself from his own child in order to protect his heart from being broken a second time. He told her, and everyone else, how proud he was of her, but couldn't bring himself to say, "I love you" ever again. She understood this and forgave him for feeling that way, but it did little to ease her pain. Her mother left when she was only five, barely old enough to vaguely remember her at now. Still, the fact that she had walked out of her life without ever looking back stood eternal testament that she hadn't loved Chloe at all. 

With her mother gone and her father too emotionally crippled to express his feelings, she looked to others to give her the love she so desperately yearned for. She tried with Clark, Pete, and Lana. Though she loved all of them, none seemed to feel as strongly for her as she did for them. Friendship alone was not enough to fill the void inside her. All it did was leave her yearning for more. 

It made things even harder when Clark seemed to start outgrowing her. She'd tried to hang on to him by taking their relationship to the next level but failed. Clark, like her mother, had found her deficient and could not return the feelings she had for him. After she finally accepted that, she found herself wondering if she truly wanted a romantic relationship with him in the fist place, or if she was only doing it to keep him from walking out of her life altogether. 

Pete had come into her life along with Clark. The bond between the two boys was stronger than either of their ties to her. Now that Clark was growing farther and farther away from her, Pete followed in his footsteps. It had gotten to where she spent little time with either of them.

Lana, a girl she once scoffed at while she secretly envied, had become one of her closest friends over the past couple of years. Far from looking down at her, as Chloe would have expected from a girl of Lana's status, she actually admired Chloe, giving her sense of approval that she secretly craved. Lana had provided the strong female bond that had been missing in her life since her mother left. She wasn't lying when she said that she considered her a sister. Yet, even Lana had never returned the sentiment, and their friendship, as much as she valued it, still wasn't enough to fill the emptiness that had grown inside her. 

"It's time to let go now Chloe." Her mother's voice pulled her out of her contemplations and back to the choice at hand. 

She knew what she had to do if she wanted to survive. The time had come to do it.

Pulling her face down toward her fists, she ripped into the chord with her tiny baby teeth and started chewing. She could hear them: Clark, Pete, Lana, and her father, all screaming as she did it. _But how can it be? _She wondered. The thick membrane of the placenta would have muffled any noise they made. _No_, she realized. _It's just in my head_. Nonetheless, the cacophony grew louder the more she chewed away at the chord. Blood (her blood) gushed from it and flowed into her open mouth, pouring down her chin as she bit into it frantically. Her teeth were small, so her progress was slow. To her surprise, the screaming was becoming less unpleasant the closer she got to being finished. In fact, she was almost beginning to enjoy it. After a while, she could almost savor the thought of killing everyone she'd once loved. She'd grown tired of the endless struggle to gain their love and approval, and a part of her longed to just be rid of them, to punish them for all the pain they'd caused her. This was what she'd been afraid to face before. Deep down, hidden from everyone, even herself, there was a dark part of Chloe Sullivan that longed to make everyone suffer, to strike back at the world with a raging fury that rivaled the fiercest fires of Hell. The emptiness had grown to the point that it pulled everything else into it like a black hole, and then the emptiness gave way to a rage that burned hot enough to warm her heart like nothing she'd felt before. When the last shred of the chord's width snapped between her teeth, Chloe looked down with anticipation and glee, to see the placenta slip into the bottomless pit below. The screeching reached a crescendo and then faded into silence, just as the placenta seemed to grow smaller and then fade into the darkness as it went crashing to an unseen end.

A smile slowly spread across her face. She was filled with the silent satisfaction that comes with shedding a tremendous burden from one's body and soul. For the first time in her life, she felt truly content.

It was by far the greatest sense of accomplishment she had ever experienced. The fulfillment that she'd always longed to achieve by winning their love, she achieved instead by causing their deaths.

Now she wanted nothing more than to turn to her mother, look at her with pride, and declare, "See, Mommy? I did it! I'm not as weak as you thought I was!" When she turned around, however, her mother was no longer there. 

Instead, she found herself looking up at the handsome face of Lex Luthor. 

He was dressed in a white suit and tie and smiled softly as he looked down at her. Not a word passed between them, just a kind of unspoken understanding. After a brief moment, he reached down with a black-gloved hand and offered it to Chloe. She hesitated at first, before finally placing her hand in his. As she did so, she saw that it was no longer the tiny hand of a toddler. It had retuned to its true size and shape, and as he helped her to her feet, she found herself standing before him as a fully-grown young woman. She looked down to see herself still clothed in a long white dress, though it now resemble the more revealing one her mother had worn earlier. Her hands moved instantly to where the chord had protruded from her abdomen. There was now no sign now that there had been anything at all growing out of her. As she rubbed her hands across her midsection, she felt only her own flat stomach under the cloth of the dress. Suddenly, she saw him place his ungloved hand over hers as it rested just below her naval, while the gloved one came up to her face. He gently tilted her chin upward so that they looked each other in the eye. 

"Now the time has come to put away childish things," he whispered.

The way he looked at her now made her feel a little uncomfortable. Instinctively, she tried to avert his gaze by looking back down toward her tummy, becoming suddenly aware of just how sheer her gown was, which made her feel even more uncomfortable. Once again, he pulled her face back up toward him. The hand that had been resting over hers now snaked around her waist and drew her closer to him. As they looked into each other's eyes, her initial discomfort quickly gave way to a deep sense of empathy and mutual understanding. The thought of him seeing through her dress seemed somewhat trivial when she realized that they could look through to each other's souls. All secrets and barriers were stripped away. He could see the monster that lurked under her skin, and she could see the monster that lurked under his. _He's like me_, she thought. _We're the same_. They had both tried so hard for so long to win the love and approval of those around them, only to be met with disappointment and betrayal. Both of them had dedicated themselves to proving themselves worthy to a world that would always look upon them as imperfect and deficient. Chloe knew now that all such efforts were in vain, that the world deserved to be punished for all that it had put them through. It was possible. She could feel herself growing stronger now that she'd shed the last vestiges of her former self. Together they could be even stronger.

She longed to share this discovery, but as she started to speak, he placed a finger gently to her lips to hush her before she could begin. He already knew what she wanted to tell him. Her lips were still wet with her blood from the chord and it got on his glove as he traced them with his fingers. The contact was electric and she felt almost pained as he pulled his hand away to lick the blood from his fingers. He closed his eyes as he savored the taste of it and smiled a contented little smile. She wrapped her arms around him and rested her head under his chin. It was the happiest she'd ever felt.

Lex could accept her the way the rest of the world never could, the way Clark never could. He would never expect her to measure up to some perfect ideal because he, like she, had come to realize just how artificial and loathsome such ideals truly are. He wasn't some knight in shining armor in search of a perfect fairy princess. He was a monster in search of kindred spirit, a fellow monster with a heart as dark as his, someone to dance in the ashes of the world with him as it came burning down around them. Love wouldn't even be necessary. It was a concept that they'd both managed to outgrow. Their relationship would be based instead on a mutual understanding and acceptance. 

Lex opened his eyes and Chloe looked up at him, this time without needing to be coaxed. They both smiled at each other before closing the distance between them with a kiss. The kiss was tentative at first, but soon they were devouring each other with vicious abandon, savoring the taste of one another's mouths as they mixed with the blood.

That's when Chloe suddenly awoke to find herself alone again and chiding herself for having such silly dreams. She decided to make her New Year's resolution to no longer mix her romantic fantasies with her nightmares. 

As she passed Lana on her way to the bathroom moments later, the raven-haired girl stopped in front of her.

"Have another nightmare?" Lana asked.

"As a matter of fact I did."

"Did it scare you?"

"Actually, I kind of enjoyed it." She paused for a moment, deep in thought. "And I think that's what scares me most of all." She walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, leaving a confused Lana alone to ponder what that could've possibly meant.

THE END


End file.
